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Application of Endophytic Pseudomonas fluorescens and a Bacterial Consortium to Brassica napus Can Increase Plant Height and Biomass under Greenhouse and Field Conditions
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2017-12-22
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Lally RD, Galbally P, Moreira AS, Spink J, Ryan D, Germaine KJ and Dowling DN (2017) Application of Endophytic Pseudomonas fluorescens and a Bacterial Consortium to Brassica napus Can Increase Plant Height and Biomass under Greenhouse and Field Conditions. Front. Plant Sci. 8:2193. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.02193
Abstract
Plant associated bacteria with plant growth promotion (PGP) properties have been
proposed for use as environmentally friendly biofertilizers for sustainable agriculture;
however, analysis of their efficacy in the field is often limited. In this study,
greenhouse and field trials were carried out using individual endophytic Pseudomonas
fluorescens strains, the well characterized rhizospheric P. fluorescens F113 and an
endophytic microbial consortium of 10 different strains. These bacteria had been
previously characterized with respect to their PGP properties in vitro and had
been shown to harbor a range of traits associated with PGP including siderophore
production, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) deaminase activity, and
inorganic phosphate solubilization. In greenhouse experiments individual strains tagged
with gfp and Kmr were applied to Brassica napus as a seed coat and were shown
to effectively colonize the rhizosphere and root of B. napus and in addition they
demonstrated a significant increase in plant biomass compared with the non-inoculated
control. In the field experiment, the bacteria (individual and consortium) were spray
inoculated to winter oilseed rape B. napus var. Compass which was grown under
standard North Western European agronomic conditions. Analysis of the data provides
evidence that the application of the live bacterial biofertilizers can enhance aspects of
crop development in B. napus at field scale. The field data demonstrated statistically
significant increases in crop height, stem/leaf, and pod biomass, particularly, in the
case of the consortium inoculated treatment. However, although seed and oil yield
were increased in the field in response to inoculation, these data were not statistically
significant under the experimental conditions tested. Future field trials will investigate the
effectiveness of the inoculants under different agronomic conditions.